Le Teste
How many times watching a balcony full of flowers and earthenware pots, maybe you noticed a pot or more than one with portrait of the moor head. And how many ceramic dealers invite you to buy it?
Many people think that it’s just a decoration or oddness of some craftsmen. But, actually, behind the creation of this shape there is a brief story.
Around 1000, In Kalsa, “the Arabic quarter in Palermo”, during the Arabic rule, in one of these narrow streets(the Arab KASBAH), Once upon a time a beautiful girl with a rosy complexion, that can be compare to a peach blossom, with beautiful eyes that seemed to reflect the beautiful sea of the Gulf of Palermo.
Segregated at home, the young girl used to spend her days taking care of her flowers at the balcony.
One day a young Moor, saw the beautiful girl look after her plants carefully. The young moor infatuated of seeing her, he decided to have her forever. without hesitation he went into the girl house and declare his own love.
The young girl affected of his feelings, she loved the young man, but when she knew that the Moor would leave her to return to his homeland, where a wife and two children waiting for him, and while he was in a deep sleeping, the Young Girl killed him. She cut off his head and turned it into a pot where she planted basil and put it outside the balcony.
In this way The young Moor, remained with her forever and in the meantime the basil grew lushly and aroused the envy of the inhabitants of the quarter ,so that, the inhabitants decided to make a clay pots with the shape of the moor.
